1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a body protector for protecting a human body from an injury caused during an attack by a knife or the like. More particularly, it relates to a human body protector used as a part of a human body protector vest which police personnel, guards or the like working at a place where there is a probability that they will be exposed to a sudden attack, or a worker usually wearing a knife for work purposes wear.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, police personnel or the like have worn a bullet proof protector underneath normal clothes to protect themselves from a gunshot wounds, in an emergency, and various bullet proof protectors have been developed and are used.
The bullet-proof property of convential protectors are very satisfactory. Nevertheless, when police personnel or the like are in a dangerous situation, it is actually necessary for the protector to have both bullet-proof and blade-proof properties. A protector having a perfect blade proof function should comprise a continuous and uniform surface, i.e., a slitless protector, but this kind of protector has no flexibility and a poor wearability. Therefore, when a protector having the blade-proof function is made to have a certain flexibility, the protector having the blade-proof function must be constituted of several segments connected to each other. The protector comprised of several segments necessarily has, however, small gaps between each segment and a blade can be pushed through these gaps. Therefore, this type of protector has a poor blade-proof function.
Recently, a proposal for a protector that is bullet-proof and blade-proof was disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 58-19700. In this publication, the protector provided with both a bullet proof function and a blade proof function by combining a blade-proof plate-like element having a blade-proof effect against a lethal weapon such as a sword, an ice pick, or the like, with a known bullet-proof textile sheet, was proposed. The blade proof plate-like protector of this invention is comprised of a plurality of blade proof elements spread over the body in one layer and two types of connecting elements connecting the adjacent blade proof elements. In this blade proof plate-like protector, some portions are formed as a two layer construction of the blade-proof elements and the connecting elements, and the other portions have a one layer constitution. Therefore, the blade-proof function of the blade-proof plate-like element acts only in the one layer constitution, and this is not sufficient in an actual dangerous situation, especially when the police personnel or the like are attacked with a pointed blade. e.g., an ice pick.